Obama offers few climate details

NEW YORK — Perhaps the most interesting thing about President Barack Obama’s climate change speech at the United Nations is what he didn’t say.

Obama didn’t promise $1 billion to help poor countries adapt to the dire effects of climate change, like France did. And he didn’t offer any hints about how sharply greenhouse gas emissions would be cut in the years after 2020, like the European Union and several other countries did.

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Instead, the president on Tuesday delivered a forceful but largely detail-free speech that sought to reassure the world about the United States’ commitment to reaching a global climate change agreement at crucial talks in Paris at the end of 2015, while leaving the specifics for later.

“It was a good speech, but there was nothing revolutionary put forward,” said Heather Coleman, climate change policy manager at Oxfam America.

Many groups fighting for a strong global agreement say revolutionary changes are needed if the planet has a chance of avoiding the most serious effects of climate change, such as widespread drought and substantial sea-level rise. While many environmentalists praised Obama’s speech, others said they’re still waiting for more aggressive steps, like a concerted effort to wean the country off fossil fuels.

“If the president really wants collective ambition, he’s got to show a little more can-do spirit from the world’s leading economy,” said Bill McKibben, who played a prominent role in Sunday’s massive climate march and is the co-founder of the environmental group 350.org. “Today’s boasts about his climate efforts ring hollow in the face of America passing Saudi Arabia and Russia as the world’s largest oil and gas producer. We hope that when ‘next year’ comes and he proposes actual targets, they’ll start to reverse the trend.”

It’s no accident that Obama didn’t make big promises. After years of failed international climate change negotiations, the president and his aides are keenly aware of the pitfalls of over-promising, even though the administration has taken unprecedented measures at home to tackle climate change, including seeking the first-ever greenhouse gas limits on the nation’s power plants.

The Obama administration faces a series of complicated considerations as it prepares its post-2020 emissions target, including determining what is achievable and politically viable, and how best the U.S. can pressure other countries to take similar action.

Peter Ogden, director of international energy and climate policy at the Center for American Progress, said the U.S. could use the time before it announces its post-2020 target to pressure China and other major polluters to offer strong targets of their own.

“I actually think that it’s smart to be a little patient, spend some time after it has decided its own target to work quietly with China and others to push for equally strong ones from them,” he said.

While President Xi Jinping of China — the world’s top CO2 emitter — did not attend the summit, Obama met with Chinese Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli behind closed doors before his speech. And Obama will meet with Narendra Modi, the prime minister of India, another major greenhouse gas emitter, during the leader’s upcoming trip to Washington.

Countries have been tasked with unveiling their post-2020 targets by the end of the first quarter of 2015. So far, only a handful of countries have outlined their commitments. While the United States hasn’t revealed its target, the European Union’s contribution is taking shape. The European Commission has proposed a target of 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030, a figure that has not yet been finalized.

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CORRECTION: Corrected by: Daniella Diaz @ 09/24/2014 04:14 PM
CORRECTION: A previous version of this story incorrectly described the green climate fund as the sole vehicle for richer nations to contribute $100 billion a year into climate efforts in developing nations, and did not specify that some of the money could come from private sources.